Let's Turn Space Program Over To Private Enterprise

March 1, 1986|By Ron Lancaster

NASA's perfection may be its undoing. Precisely because of the agency's flawless safety record with two dozen routine shuttle flights, the public endowed it with near infallibility, assuming the astronauts and their backup army of technocrats and engineers all had the right stuff.

Naturally, after the terrible accident, we still want to believe in the right stuff. A realization is sinking in, however, that an era has ended, although some still cling to the naive cowboy attitude: We'll find the problem, fix it mechanically and climb back in the saddle to ride again after we get back our nerve.

After being bucked off the wild Challenger bronc, we'll pull ourselves up, shake the dust off our chaps and hat and have another go at the big bronc. We'll show that bronco we aren't scared! But first we have to persuade investors not to be scared.

If deregulation works in the trucking, telecommunications and airline industries, why not apply it to a large government agency such as NASA? Deregulating the civilian spaceflight program would make it leaner, more efficient, better managed and set on a path toward self-sufficiency.

No one advocates dismantling NASA completely, but it needs to be reorganized and fundamentally restructured to bring about privatization through corporate venture capital.

The whole concept would be consistent with Reaganomics, getting the government out of the civilian aspect of the space program and fostering an entrepreneurial spirit.

Let government step back and encourage private sector involvement to promote and finance civilian spaceflight. It could lead to some type of charter cargo service run by one or more privately owned civilian ''spacelines,'' much like commercial charter airlines.

Let NASA evolve into independent competitive charter spacelines, with the forces of the marketplace dictating the direction of the civilian space program. This would allow market demand to determine the profitability and necessity of particular shuttle missions. It would be healthier to have venture capitalists, that is private risk takers, staking their own funds and deciding who flies, when and at what cost.

If non-professional astronauts such as senators, teachers, journalists and others want to fly aboard shuttle missions, let them seek private funding for their training and their passenger fare. Put a fare box on the shuttle and proceed with civilians on board strictly on a pay-as-you-go basis.

The space program is far too costly to be wasting shuttle seats on non- essential personnel who are along just for the ride. Let the program continue but operate with private funding; it's the American way.

Under the most traumatic and tragic circumstances imaginable, we have been reminded -- just as we were with the death of three astronauts in 1967 -- how dangerous rocketry still is. And only professionals with specific and important assignments should occupy seats on board.